Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions is a twin-stick shooting game available for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS4. Geometry Wars started out life as a mini-game upon the release of Project Gotham Racing 2 on November 17th 2003 and was accessible via the in-game garage, which due to the positive reception it received from players was spun off into its own game called Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved and has since continued as its own successful series of games. Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions was developed by Lucid Games who rose from the ashes of the unfortunately disbanded Bizarre Creations that had developed the Project Gotham Racing series and began the Geometry Wars series as well as some excellent titles through the years such as Formula One, Formula 1 ’97, Metropolis Street Racer, Fur Fighters, The Club, Blur and James Bond 007: Blood Stone, therefore proving Bizarre Creation’s and Lucid Games’ pedigree as excellent games developers and one of the best Liverpool based developers of all-time in the videogames industry.

The Adventure Mode encompasses a range of gameplay variations such as Deadline, Evolved, Checkpoint, Pacifism, King, Rainbow, boss battles and much more besides across a total of over 50 levels, while there are 3 stars to be earned per level which have a particular target score attached to each star with each level being unlocked in accordance with having earned an appropriate amount of stars.

The Classic Mode features five game modes including Deadline Classic, King Classic, Evolved Classic, Pacifism Classic and Waves Classic with each mode containing their own unique gameplay variations. Deadline Classic sees the player attempting to score as many points as possible before the time limit expires, while King Classic provides one life, no guns and outside king zones; Evolved Classic tasks the player to score as many points as possible with three lives; Pacifism Classic provides one life, no guns and the player must destroy enemies by triggering gates; and Waves Classic offers the task to score as many points as possibly can be gained within the duration of one life. The vast amount of game modes and gameplay variants is an extremely positive design choice as it manages to keep the gameplay fresh at all times.

There are two bonus levels including a PlayStation themed exclusive level called Symbolic, which provides a decorative graphical theme to the layout of the enemies as the green enemies spawn in a triangular formation, while the red enemies form as a circle, the blue enemies spawn in the shape of an X and the pink enemies appear in the form of a square to symbolise the DualShock controller’s iconic face buttons, which provides an excellent and enjoyable homage for every PlayStation gamer and there is another bonus level that is unlocked after defeating the Topaz boss called The List.

After an enemy has been destroyed, it will leave a green Geom behind which will increase the score multiplier upon collection, although the increased score multiplier is as good as providing an award for how bravely the game is being played in regards to how many risks are being taken as the green Geoms will disappear within a matter of seconds, so players must quickly retrieve them before a number of incoming enemies descend upon the position.

There are six boss enemies that must be defeated as progression is made through the adventure mode, while it is made clear when an encounter is going to happen with a boss as they are found in the larger squares on the level selection grid with bosses initially being encountered every five and then ten levels apart. Every boss has their own attack patterns and defences making them unpredictable and difficult to combat, while a clever gameplay design choice is the rewarding of a new drone being unlocked after having defeated an enemy boss. There arefive drone categories which provide a unique improvement to the craft including: attack; collect; ram; snipe; and defend with each drone improving a particular skill such as the attack drone enhancing the firepower, while all five drones possess multiple levels of strength that are capable of being upgraded by purchases using your in-game currency which is earned via progression in the adventure mode. The drone categories, firepower and strategy of the players loadout selections are shaken up even further by Super State power-ups spawning at random occasions to provide an increased rate of fire for the ship’s weaponry which combines with the unlockable and upgradeable Super power-ups including: miner, homing, black hole, turret and clone that are unlockable when reaching a certain amount of stars, while they are all upgradeable to make the effect of each Super even stronger.

The enemy design has a pretty good amount of diversity to it as enemies come in the form of various shapes, sizes and colours which move independently of each other at differing speeds with the enemies mostly comprising of shapes but also including slithering snakes and orange ships that zip around rather quickly in a variety of directions for instance, while all of the enemies are easily capable of sneaking up and causing a surprise if the player’s concentration is even only momentarily fixated in a single direction.

The level design comprises of a variety of grids that offer up a range of shapes and sizes with some levels providing a more open plan environment to be explored in comparison to other levels that box the player into a confined space to shake up your approach to the enemy and how the enemy approaches you.

Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions supports the share feature that allows players to upload a video clip or a screen shot to Facebook or Twitter; and broadcast live gameplay footage via Twitch or Ustream as the game is being experienced with a simple tap of the share button and selecting the option of choice. The PS4’s hard-drive continuously stores the most recent fifteen minutes of gameplay footage, so players still have the chance to decide if they would like to share something amazing a few minutes after it has taken place. The share feature is a next-gen revolution that has only improved with the further customisation provided by the Share Factory app that allows commentary, music, themes, stickers, effects, text, picture-in-picture video between game footage and the player’s reaction from the PlayStation Camera and much more besides, which will only continue to prosper and flourish as it matures with additional features and further experimentation in the future.

Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions supports the remote play feature that allows play to commence on almost any PS4 game on PlayStation Vita via a Wi-Fi internet connection by pairing up the PS4 and Vita via configuring the settings on your PS4 to enable the Vita to connect to it, then entering the code provided from the settings menu on the Vita’s PS4 Link application with the initial setup taking around only two minutes. The performance during remote play is amazing as the graphics, audio and general performance are all of the same quality of the PS4 version with the exception of a lack of optimisation to the controls as the shoulder buttons have been moved to the rear touch pad, but if players put that aside then the remote play performance is more than competent.

The controls are well mapped to the DualShock 4 controller as they are quite effective and yet simplistic to learn as the default control scheme consists of pressing L2 for a super; pressing R2 for a Smart Bomb to destroy a swarm of enemy shapes with immediate effect; pressing L1 or R1 to share ammunition during team based game modes; changing the direction of the left analogue stick to move; changing the direction of the right analogue stick to shoot; pressing the share button takes the player to the share feature menu; and pressing the options button to display the pause menu, while there is an alternative control scheme that switches the purposes of the analogue sticks around resulting in shooting changing to the left analogue stick and movement being mapped to the right analogue stick, which is a great design choice as it would surely appeal to any players that were not used to the default control scheme.

The light bar implementation produces the same colour that is representative of the laser grid that the level plays out on such as light tones of blue or purple, although there are no touch pad controls which is surprising as the touch pad could have provided an alternative to moving the ship with a swipe in the direction desired to move in and tapping the top left for a super, top right for a Smart Bomb, bottom left or right to share ammunition during team modes and tapping the centre of the touch pad to shoot, while the lack of vibration is just as surprising as the controller should have vibrated upon the players ship exploding when destroyed by an enemy.

The graphics are excellent as they are vibrant and colourful during an always incoming plethora of enemies setting in on the player’s position with various designs, while being surrounded by great particle effects within the laser grid and backgrounds that collectively work in harmony to provide a stylish look, alongside consistently exceptional performance, especially at 1080p resolution and 60 frames per second, although stereoscopic 3D would have taken the game into a new dimension graphically.

The presentation of the game is solid with a great user interface across various menus such as the main menu, adventure, classic mode, bonus levels, online multiplayer, local co-op, options and gameplay menus with support for navigation via the left analogue stick, directional pad, face buttons and the touch pad, although it does not include support for navigation via the right analogue stick. The background of the menu screens revolves around grids formed from lasers, while there are plenty of particle effects and waves of colour that mostly consists of a variety of blue tones.

There is a robotic voice-over to inform of the availability or loss of a Super State power-up and when a player has successfully completed the level, while the sound effects include the spawning of enemies, firing of weapons from the players ship, explosions from when an enemy shape has been destriyed or an enemy collides with the ship and incidental sound effects such as the timer ticking down towards the end of the level, alongside techno sci-fi music.

The trophy list includes 31 trophies with 9 bronze, 17 silver, 4 gold and a platinum trophy. The easier trophies include the Millionaire bronze trophy for scoring at least 1 million points on any level in Adventure Mode and the Bossman bronze trophy for defeating any boss in the Adventure Mode without using a Drone Super or a Smart Bomb. The majority of the trophy list consists of hard trophies such as the Geometry Warrior for achieving the target scores set to earn the 3 stars for all 50 levels of the Adventure Mode; the Keen Adventurer gold trophy for defeating the Topaz boss in Adventure Mode; the Multi Millionaire silver trophy for scoring at least 100 million points on any level in Adventure Mode; the Geomtastic gold trophy for earning at least a 1,000 score multiplier on any level in Adventure Mode; the BFF gold trophy for achieving the target scores set to earn the 3 stars for all 10 levels of the Co-op Mode; and much more besides. It is estimated that depending upon skill and a good trophy guide to provide some helpful tips that it would take between 20 to 25 hours to platinum the trophy list.

There are no difficulty levels, although the difficulty curve naturally introduces an increase in the amount of simultaneous incoming enemies and progressively steps up their aggressive nature in regards to how quickly they will approach to attack the player’s ship, while the required score to earn each of the three stars will also climb rapidly, therefore forcing players to attempt to improve their skills in an attempt to have any chance of progressing further.

The local co-op multiplayer consists of the same variety of gameplay elements as the adventure mode in single player, although there are anywhere from two to four players participating in alternative levels in simultaneous multiplayer as each player works together in a team in an attempt to defeat the incoming waves of enemies for the entirety of the minute and 30 seconds time limit, while a competitive element is added to the gameplay via each player attempting to earn the individual high score for the level.

The online multiplayer consists of two to eight players participating via matchmaking or private lobbies in two game modes which are part co-operative part competitive as the rules of stock are based upon the first team to kill the boss wins, although if the time expires before the boss is killed then the team with the highest score wins, while summoner sees both teams attempting to achieve the highest score by shooting towers to spawn enemies to kill and the more enemies are spawned as a tower is shot at, although the opposing team can claim a tower  and have the capability of shooting enemies instead of the player’s team and the scenario is made even harder by your team’s score multiplier being reduced if your ship was to be destroyed.

The online leaderboards are focused on global rankings, player ranking and friend’s rankings with each leaderboard containing each player’s rank; name (PSN ID); and their total amount of points accumulated with the positioning of each player based upon their total points for every level of the Adventure Mode and every variation of each game mode.

The replayability stems from a variety of areas with plenty of game modes and gameplay variants, while unlockable and upgradeable drone categories provide the opportunity to improve your ship and revisit levels to enhance your high scores, alongside local and online part co-operative part competitive multiplayer and an astronomical amount of online leaderboards that urges players to improve upon their personal best score for a better position on the leaderboards.

Overall, Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions is a highly recommended game for those who enjoy the twin-stick shooting genre with more than enough content to justify the price tag of £13.99 as the digital release could realistically have been a retail release, which most certainly possesses a high level of quality, addictive gameplay, replay value and value.

Jason Bonnar

Analysis

• Title: Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions
• Developer: Lucid Games
• Publisher: Activision/Sierra
• System: PS4
• Format: PSN Download
• Cross-Buy: No
• Cross-Play: No
• Players: 2-4 (Local Co-op/Competitive Points)/2-8 (Online Co-op/Competitive)/Online Leaderboards
• Hard Drive Space Required: 183.7MB (Version 1.01)